Thoughts on Waiting

Later I will post about the fun times I had with the kids over the weekend. I want to put pictures with it, and they are on my computer at home. Today I want to just admit that I am feeling lonely. It's gotten a bit better over the past couple of weeks, but today is hard. Yesterday some people we love accepted a new job and announced that they are preparing to move. They don't live here, so they're not leaving us. It made me sad a bit, though, because there is hope in that second chance. As happy as I am for them, I feel a twinge of jealousy that it is not us.

Living in Jackson is very hard. I've had people say, "Well, you were lonely in high school, so what makes this worse?" What makes it worse is that high school, being a teenager in general, has an end. No matter how miserable it is, you know you will be moving on. This city, unless your family has lived here for generations or you went to Union, will never ever welcome you. You could live here a hundred years and never be "from here". When you go visit other places, people say, "Where are you from?" in a way that says they are interested in your story. Here they say, "You ain't from around here, are ya?" in a way that reminds you that you will ALWAYS be an outsider. Today, I am struggling with the loneliness of living here again.

At lunch I read Lamentations 3:17-29, 55-58. The whole chapter is good, but these verses spoke to my heart today.

"I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, 'My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.' I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.' The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust-there may yet be hope...I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: 'Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.' You came near when I called you, and you said, 'Do not fear.' O Lord, you tooko up my case; you redeemed my life."

I am so glad that I am not the only one who has struggled with stuckness, and that God's Word itself is full of encouragement from those who have walked this way before. "It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." May it come quickly.